Playing music from USB stick

Update: I haven't found any way to bypass Bluetooth, except using the Line Input with another mp3 player, which is unacceptable. I messed around a lot with the settings on my Android player app (folder player), but that's a discussion more appropriate for an Android forum than a Can-Am forum. What finally fixed the problem was switching to a different mp3 player app (Media Monkey).

So even if your phone works via Bluetooth with another vehicle and doesn't work with a Spyder, don't assume it's the fault of the Spyder. Try another mp3 player app or several before drawing any conclusions.

Bluetooth acts up in general with many devices. The phone forums feature people with plenty of complaints. My difficulty was probably (just a wild ass guess) with how the old mp3 app handled screen timeout, and waking from pause caused by shutting off the Spyder. It's fixed now with the new mp3 player app and I'm a lot happier.

txstevel53 said:

I've had it with trying to deal with Bluetooth music on my 2018 Spyder F3T. It's difficult to connect. it doesn't always play when I shut off the bike and restart it, and so far it's just died three times for no apparent reason. My Bluetooth player on my phone works great in my car, and doesn't have any of these problems, so it's not the phone or the phone app.

I'd like to put my music library on a USB stick and bypass Bluetooth completely, but I've never gotten the bike to see the USB drive, and I've tried many, many times. I formatted the 16GB stick for FAT 32, tried copying the MP3 files using both Windows and Linux, and I've mounted the drive as a portable device and deleted the system volume information folder. Absolutely nothing works.

I'd greatly appreciate ANY help getting a USB drive to work for playing music. It appears BRP Connect is no longer available on Google Play, so I'm using BRP Go, which doesn't work for a lot of things. Bombardier completely screwed up Android Auto to the point that Go apps are unusable.

If USB music won't work with BRP Go and I need to install BRP Connect on my Motorola (Lenovo) Moto G7 (Android 10)
and anyone knows of a source for BRP Connect software for Android 10 that can sideload, I'd really appreciate it. I'm pretty technical, and have done sideloading before. If I'm missing something for playing from USB, I'd love to hear about it.

THANKS !!!

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Even my older Range Rover does that. It drives me crazy. How difficult would it have been to add that functionality, really. Would have been more use that the stupid radio which nobody uses anymore. The whole use of cables plus the Bluetooth connection thing is just annoying. Having to connect things in a certain order.

The display is too small to even read anything anyway. Why did they not just put a cellphone or tablet clamp on the bars and call it a day. I try not to get annoyed with it as I don't want to spoil my enjoyment of the bike, which I really like, but whoever designed the user interface for the entertainment and GPS should be forced to use it for eight hours a day everyday until they get it to work.

In fact the whole display is hard to read, especially in sunlight with shades on.

I guess I'm just old and grumpy but there you go.

It's been a while since I updated this post, and my "journey" to get decent quality audio from my Spyder F3t has taken many twists and turns. I've learned a lot in the past few months, and for those who may be interested I thought I'd share what I've learned along the way:

To get decent quality music audio, you have to start with a phone that offers above average audio quality. Luckily my Motorola (Lenovo) G7 plus is an upgrade from previous models that had really miserable quality mp3 decoding hardware. You can do a Google search on "phones with best audio quality" to see some various makes and models. Some are quite expensive, so do some research online into more budget friendly models that got good reviews.
Generally, Sony and Apple offer phones with outstanding audio fidelity (from what I've read). Let your wallet be your guide.

I've spent hours processing mp3 files to increase volume and remove distortion. It's a huge effort if you have a lot of music like I do, but the difference can be pretty amazing. In fact I'm postponing if not cancelling plans for aftermarket speakers and an amp because so much can be done using software on the source files. Two excellent programs that I use are Audacity for distortion removal and other effects and MP3 Gain to set a consistent volume level for all my music (no fiddling with the volume control for every song). Audacity is available for Windows, Mac, or Linux. MP3 gain is Windows only.

If you have original music CD's, I recommend re-ripping (converting the contents to MP3) them with the highest and best quality setting which is 320 kbps. The Spyder F3t audio system is pretty crappy, so it needs all the help it can get. If the originals were ripped with lower quality settings to get smaller files, this will help a lot. The default setting in Windows Media player is 240 kbps, so if you didn't change it when you ripped your music CD's, that's what you've got now.

Like I said, the difference can be amazing, and the best part is it costs nothing (assuming you don't need to buy a better phone).

Good luck to all !